{ad}The best thing about smartphones is that they’re an all-in-one solution. Not only are they great phones, but they’re also great music and video players. Of course, the best sound doesn’t come out of the phone itself and is instead experienced either through headphones or when the smartphone is connected to a speaker system. With GSM phones, connecting up to a speaker system or being near a speaker system generally produces interference, and in most cases the only way to solve the problem is to put the phone into “flight mode”–basically shutting off the mobile antenna. Enter the T612.

Altec Lansing’s T612 was designed from the ground up to allow an iPod and more specifically the iPhone user the ability to enjoy her music stored on the device. It features an integrated charging cradle, 60 Watts of power, a wireless remote, a 3.5mm stereo cable (for aux input), and most important for iPhone users, built in functionality that pauses your music so that you can take a phone call.

T612 with iPhone

For my tests I plugged in the unit and then plugged in my iPhone. At first I received a “this unit is not designed for use with the iPhone…” message on my iPhone. I then disconnected and reconnected the iPhone and all was well. I’m assuming the connector half connected initially and caused the iPhone to spit out that warning message.

I then hit play on the remote and from the standard “slide to unlock” screen, I saw the title of the song display at the top and the music started streaming out of the T612 speaker system.

I then “slid” the slider and was immediately launched into the iPod part of the iPhone, complete with a picture of the album cover for the song that was playing.

The T612 really pumps out the tunes. The on-screen volume control on the iPhone is disabled but you can crank up the volume on the T612 via the built-in controls or the remote control. The T612 features an LED indicator on the front of the unit which illustrates if you’re lowering or raising the volume, and to what level. It seemed like I was able to continue to crank the T612 louder, even after the LED indicator had maxed all the way to the right. It reminded me of the “11” that you used to find on some volume knobs on amplifiers back in the day. :-) I was also able to do the same thing with the separate bass and treble controls, and it pumped out a decent amount of bass without a subwoofer.

View from above, showing the controls and the iPhone

As for the interference that I’m used to hearing, none could be detected. More importantly, when I called the phone, the music paused and I was able to take the call. When I finished the call, the music resumed. I also tested ignoring the call and the music resumed just in the same way as it had when I had hung up the received call.

Another nice benefit of having the phone still operating is that I was able to stream music live from FlyTunes, so I wasn’t just limited to the music stored on my iPhone.

The only drawback I found with the T612 is that you have to actually remove the iPhone from the cradle to take the call. Perhaps a future version can include an integrated microphone and a button on the remote for engaging it?

Otherwise, it’s a solid device and well worth the $200 asking price, not to mention that it’s an attractive piece of gear when matched with an LCD TV.

One more thing: below you’ll see a scan of a flyer that was included in the box showing off the T612 mounted on a wall. Not something I’d be rushing out to do only because I’d have to also put an AC outlet behind it for power, but if you’re up for it, you can get a free wall mounting kit–at least you could when this unit was shipped to me.